Backup Strats Speedrunning Podcast – Episode 2 with ScholarlyGamer

The Backup Strats Speedrunning Podcast is a weekly hour-long show discussing the latest news about speedrunning and streaming, and interesting topics related to Twitch communities on the whole. Each week we will bring on a new guest from the business and talk with them about the games they play and the different insane tricks and speedrunning strategies they utilize.

This week’s episode features Scholarly Gamers’ Editor-in-Chief Matt Ferguson who joins in to learn about a niche area of gaming from an equally niche group of gamers. We open with a small discussion on the Super Mario 602 Race, an event in which speedrunners compete to collect all the stars/shines in Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, all in a row (a total of 602, surprisingly). Quite a haul, especially considering that an average run takes around 30 hours, kind of like a triathlon, which led us right into our next topic. Matt briefly compares speedrunning in e-sports and how in many ways it functions much like traditional sports, with athletes, coaches and commentators.

Capn, as usual, compares everything to Crash Bandicoot as we delve into the finer details on the overall merits of speedrunning. We discuss what constitutes a genuine speedrun, and if runs that merely expose holes in maps to glitch through things are worth even watching and playing. We open Matt up to some of the most essential questions in the community: Is an “any%” run better than a 100% run? Is a glitchless run always the way to go?

In the latter third of the podcast we invite Matt to talk about Scholarly Gamers, how the project evolved, and their overall mission statement. He makes the case that the concept of looking at games analytically is just as valid as literature or film, two agreed-upon disciplines typically deemed worthy of academic thinking. The community and website have come a long way since their inception, and in doing so have grown to encompass many different types of content creators, each from different backgrounds with a new and interesting perspectives on gaming.

If you want to catch the podcast live, we generally stream on Twitch at 6pm EST on Sundays. If you can’t make the live show you can always catch up on the Backup Strats YouTube channel, and weekly here at Scholarly Gamers.

Follow us off-the-air on Twitter @BackupStrats so you know when we go live, and if you want to suggest a guest or have any news you want to see covered, drop us a line at backupstratspodcast@gmail.com. We hope to see you at our next live show!

SCHOLARS ONLINE

With Scholarly Gamers, our team hopes to deliver a reporting platform above and beyond the standard set forth by loads of other media sources. We look to bring about critical thought and examination to a number of themes, technologies, implications, and more when it comes to the games that we share a passion for.